Holy expansion

Holy expansion

 

Twice five k's on the beach

from Butterfly Blu to Buffalo Bay

and back again -

no one but you,

a couple of oystercatchers,

one little heron,

mussels on rock,

and the mad tide with its foam.

This is the sea our mother and father

taught us: strip, and run into,

to be bathed and renewed,

always they sought the isolated places

for their essences of bliss.

An excellent religion,

this womb of truth,

the dispassionate aggression

of the waves, attacking one another, joying

in complete trust that they cannot be tamed,

nor hurt themselves.

We'd return from the holidays

humbled and imbued -

they were holy expansions,

preparing us to wash each upcoming, 

difficult day.

- Silke Heiss

 

 

Towards breakfast, a flower

Oh, my dear God,
sweet Christ: who would believe

this estuary of us -

who is the river and who

the sound

of

the sea?

Longer than the count of years,

my life has been, and now

you lead me to this threshold -

saturated by peace, and crabs,

kingfishers, and fish,

and fishermen, and other birds.

Keep me here, my darling Lord,

thank you for bringing me through,

to talk with you, at this kind hour.

Before me now: two fishermen,

oaring musically

their small boat, stacked with rods,

towards breakfast.

Ah, this Flower,

singing

on the water!

- Silke Heiss

The strange momentum of the unimportant

The gentle memory I referred to in my last blog, so generously conveyed by my niece, is terribly unimportant.

Unimportant in the sense of not carrying a heavy load. It's a light, a delightful memory.

She loved, as a girl, when she visited the coastline I was living at, at the time, to stand at the edge of the sea's reach, letting the waves pull the sand out from under and behind her feet, sinking deeper and deeper in towards her ankles. The sensation would cause her to giggle exultantly.

Her memory is nothing more than that I stood with her in the same joy, with similarly buried feet, in the same, exulted at-oneness with foamy mother ocean playing the same game, over and over, around our toes and soles and bodied spirits.

The others walked on. She could forget about following them - they'd not worry about her, so long as I kept vigil. So we wallowed freely in pure joy.

She says (and I thank her for allowing me to share this): "I'd been standing in the sand with my feet in, and you were always somebody who understood the physical aspect of a relationship with nature, and I'd be standing with my feet in the sand, and I used to giggle, because every time the water would pull away from me it would bring some more of the water with me, and I would laugh, because I would just stand, and my feet would fall deeper and deeper into the water, and I would love that. And you would always stand with me and, like, feel it with me, and enjoy it with me, and everybody would walk away, and they would keep walking down to the restaurant along the beach, but you would always stand with me."

If you are still reading, it probably means you're transported to unimportant, delightful memories of your own. Memories, perhaps, of physical experiences in nature, with someone you love and feel safe with, who shares the joy you're feeling.

Wallow! It's worth it. Such stuff provides direction for the momentum of lighthearted souls.

Photo by Thabang Mokoena on Unsplash

U/7Lboots on the reddit app tells us the science behind the joy.

Ushered

I reflected last week on the sacred nature of words, and related this to the language of the heart - that is to say, to that organ, which essentially wants as many happy feelings as can be packed into its lifetime.

Inasmuch as it is associated with consecration, the word 'sacred' is loaded with reverence, which can be risky to joy. If there is an excess of respect, barriers of fear pop up like so many mean little picket fences everywhere, and intelligently happy feelings flee forthwith. 

Of all the instruments we have at our disposal to create happy feelings, language is surely one that immediately takes pride of place. Peruse, for example, these acrobatics from one of the most beautiful clowns the English language ever had - 

"In the beginning God created heaven and earth with, it would appear, Irish labour. It took the Lord six days, and on the seventh he rested, during which time speculative builders put up Kilburn. Kilburn High Street runs three miles, that's why it looks 'shagged out'. A walk through Kilburn has left an indelible blank on my mind. The British, it is said, are made up of four races, the best of these are the Derby and the Oaks.

Kilburn was a melting pot, occasionally stirred by the National Front, an extreme political organisation whose election manifesto was 'I'll punch yer fuckin' 'ead in'. The leaders were any of them that could count up to ten without having to sit down." - from 'The Looney' by Spike Milligan

It just keeps getting hilariouser and hilariouser - so, yes: you'll have to get the book.

My point is that there is room in heaven for the Jabberwocky and all the hobbits' riddles, and even the worst limericks (okay, those might be kept under celestial shadecloth, just in case).

Whenever Christ appears to me, He does so playfully, dancingly, full of youthful sparkle, definitely bringing undiluted happy feelings. (Speaking for myself, I've had to admit that my heart simply can't cope with the crucifixion. I am one of those 'sensitive viewers' who only manage repeatedly to weep over that horror story.) 

Yes, language is sacred, but it is not nailed to a cross. It is free to dance and sing all manner of paths it finds to please human hearts in uncountable ways.

Sure, it can be misled. A writer or speaker can be enticed up all kinds of garden paths, including those in Gethsemane. But that is likely to be the subject of another blog. For now, consider yourselves ushered. Towards reading whatever gives your heart real joy.

 

 

My very first Hogpost: An organic lifestyle

Background: Photoshopped version of Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night

Frolicking (Birthday poem for Richard)

I love late March and April - the time of dark and pale butterflies. When I lived in Simonstown, there were so many that they softly slapped your skin as you walked through clouds of them. Now again, in Hogsback, they create a happy fizz about the legs - they generally fly low, keeping close to the grassheads.

When I walked about this morning, in search of a photograph for a friend's birthday wish, a pair of them kept still enough to let me get close. One of them stayed long enough for me to get a solo shot. He let me come so near, my phone's camera couldn't get his face in focus!

I thank my friend for allowing me to share his birthday poem with you, so you, too, can joy in the feel of the butterflies.

Frolicking
Birthday poem for Richard 

Black butterflies
- on brambles and
on forest grasses -
frolicking.

- Silke Heiss, 28th March 2019

Closer and closer my camera came, but he did not stir.

Butterfly pair alighting.

Entymologists please note:
These "black butterflies" are the Common Bush Brown (Bicyclus Safitza Safitza), but the poem needs their blackness for lightness of sound. "Brown" followed by "brambles" in the next line would ground both the poem and the butterflies! Poetic licence ensures the poem's as well as the creatures' integrity, each in their own context.